


Chasing Home

by JesseMo



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abusive Dursley Family (Harry Potter), Accepting wizarding community, Almost Everyone - Freeform, Bisexual Sirius Black, Black Hermione Granger, Characters of color, Desi Harry Potter, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, F/M, FTM Severus Snape, Families of Choice, Family Feels, Female Harry Potter, Gay Remus Lupin, Girl Power, Good Severus Snape, Gryffindor Harry Potter, Harry Potter Abandoned by Dursleys, M/M, MTF Lavender Brown, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore, Mentor Minerva McGonagall, Mentor Severus Snape, Queer Gen, Queer Themes, Remus Lupin Raises Harry Potter, Sassy Harry Potter, Second Chances, Sirius Black Raises Harry Potter, Slow Burn, Trans Harry Potter, Trans Remus Lupin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-20 18:38:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17027913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JesseMo/pseuds/JesseMo
Summary: After months on the streets from being abandoned, the now self-named Amanda Potter happens to cross paths with an old family friend that takes her in.At Hogwarts, a 1st year Percy Weasley is practicing his transfiguration on his pet, accidentally exposing the truth of his rat Scabbers. A truth that sets an innocent Sirius Black free from Azkaban after 7 years.





	1. Petunia

**Author's Note:**

> That's right bitches. I'm doing it. I'm writing a MTF Trans Harry Potter, ya'll. You best believe it.  
> No more writing some cis, born a girl all along, fem Harry.  
> Nope. I'm doing this my way. And that is because diverse and positive representation matters in all forms of literature, being that cannon novels or fanfiction.  
> You don't like it then there are plenty of wonderful fics where Harry is as he is in canon. I've read plenty, you are not at a loss for options if this story is not your cup of tea.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Proofread the chapter and tidied it up.

Petunia saw the signs first. 

She already knew that her nephew was abnormal just like her sister. The witch in the family. 

They had sworn, she and Vernon, that they wouldn’t let Harry grow up to be anything like his parents. They would house him and cloth him and make sure he knew his place and never believe in anything else. That he always knew was no good for anything but to help make their life easier for taking such a burden onto themselves by raising him and to live a normal, ordinary existence. They did everything they could to stomp out any unnaturalness at the first signs of it, rip the weed out by the root so to say before it grew too big and wild.

She and Vernon never spoke of it, never acknowledged out loud what it was when it started to happen. They would never say the word. To say the word was to accept it. They had banned that word from their lives a long time ago.

So instead of explaining what Harry did wrong, they just called him a freak and punished him severely whenever something abnormal occurred around the boy. If it was questioned how it happened they would come up with some reasonable theory of how he could have done it. 

The strange things that would happen to or around Harry were bad enough but then Petunia started noticing her nephew was even more peculiar, in another way. A way that was almost more unsettling.

First, it was Harry’s hair. The boy had his father’s horrible, curly hair that went out in every direction it seemed. It was a horrible eyesore. Petunia and Vernon both hated the look of it, but they would never spend their money on the boy and take him to a barber. Instead, she took it upon herself to cut his hair in the kitchen and have him clean up the mess for her after.  But even from his first haircut at three-years-old, no matter how short she cut it, Harry’s hair always grew back out right away again.

But Petunia was persistent and continued to try and cut the boys hair every few months to keep it trimmed. Harry noticed his hair was not very much shorter than what it had been before and asked after why she bothered to cut it at all. She smacked the back of his head for his insolence, knowing very well his hair always grew back out. 

She could manage his hair, but then she caught him putting a ribbon in it one Christmas when he was five. He must have saved it off of one of Dudley’s Christmas wrappings. She had snatched it out of his hair right away, pulling some strands from his scalp along with it and tossed it in the fire. She shaved his head to the scalp that evening and watched as it just grew right back out. And this time, as if out of spite, it grew even longer than it had been before, reaching just above his shoulders.

  
Petunia had no choice put to let the Harry tie it back. More than once, Petunia had passed the boys cupboard and caught him humming as she worked the knots from his hair with a comb that was missing most of its teeth. He had looked positively feminine one day with the most serene look on his face and Petunia snatched the comb from him before Vernon or Dudley caught him.

Vernon would give him the beating of his life if he saw Harry acting like such a poof. She had just had the hall carpet cleaned and she would not have the boy bleeding all over it.

Vernon had complained already about Harry’s hair making the boy look like a nancy and demanded she cut it again. She had to explain in private that she had tried to cut it only for it to grow out again and was worried if she kept trying it would only grow out longer. They could do nothing else about it. The best they could do was try to think of ways not to let it draw too much attention to Harry. 

So they gave him a ball cap to wear when he went out, making him tuck the length of his hair into it when he went out. 

But Harry’s hair was only the start.

Petunia began to notice the boy’s eyes going to the dresses on display in the shop windows whenever she had to take him out with her to do errands because Mrs. Figgs couldn’t watch him. She frowned at the way Harry’s eyes stayed glued to the floral patterns of the fabric and swishy skirts. He was just a little boy, he wouldn’t even have it in his mind to be curious about a woman's figure to be drawn to the curves of the mannequin. Her stomach churned at the possibilities of why he was so interested in staring at the displays.

She had smacked him upside the head and dragged him away from the window by his ears the first time she realized what it could mean. That maybe he was a far or something worse. That he was even more abnormal than they already knew him to be. 

Petunia started taking in Dudley’s old clothes that they had already given to Harry. The clothes were so big on him the shirts and jumpers were practically like dresses on him and Petunia hoped that perhaps the boy was just confused by the similar length of his too big shirts with woman’s dresses. 

Fixing his clothes only made things worse. Harry had asked if she would teach him to sew, so he could fix her clothes and maybe the rest of the families so she wouldn’t have to do it. Harry never offered to do more than he was told, that was odd already, but the way his eyes gleamed at the needle and thread frightened Petunia with the implications of his interest. She had slapped the six-year-old hard across the face. Telling him to never think of doing women's work. Cooking and doing other housework were chores, they were different, but this was a life's work and he was a boy. She called him a freak and shut him in his cupboard for the next two days without food.

Harry seemed to be better some when she let him out. He kept his eyes down at home and never looked too long over at her when she started to knit or sew something. He stuck to cooking and working in the backyard where people couldn’t see him, getting his hands dirty as a boy his age should. Seeing him pull out weeds made Petunia think.

Perhaps it was because they kept him in the cupboard too much he was so reluctant to go outside, to climb trees or roll around in the grass like the other boys his age? Maybe they had kept him cooped up too much and neglected to give him the proper talks that he was confused. She tried a softer approach, she took one of her magazines and pointed out the differences between men and women, what was expected of each gender and started to encourage him to go out more, explore away from the house where the neighbors couldn’t see him of course. She wouldn’t have them gossiping about him as a reflection of her family.

Petunia could already imagine the type of things they might say and her cheeks flushed with mortification. She made sure Harry’s hair was tucked up into his cap when he left the house and told him he better come back with some dirt on his knees.

He always did, just like he was told.

Weeks later, Vernon had been passing through the hall and smelled flowers. He looked in the parlor and the kitchen only to find none. So where was the smell coming from? They hadn’t had flowers in the house for months, since Petunia’s birthday. He finally realized where the smell was coming from after a bit of sniffing around like a hound.

Harry had been sneaking back flowers and putting them in some cola bottles that he had taken from the recycling and keeping them in the cupboard. They were dozens of bottles with long stemmed flowers and small broken cups with shorter wildflowers too. He had gotten his knee’s and hands dirty not from playing in the grass, wrestling over a ball or falling during a run but from picking flowers.

Vernon had given the boy a black eye and bruised ribs for it. But only after he had tossed all the flowers out in the trash, right in front of the boy. Vernon shouted at him that he would not keep a freak  _ and _ a poof in his house. That if the boy didn’t start acting like a man soon he would be out on the streets in London, on the doorsteps of some godforsaken orphanage that could barely feed him.

Vernon told Dudley to start taking Harry out with him to play with his friends, to show him how a proper lad acted and not to be afraid to rough his cousin up a bit if he started acting fruity with him.

Harry always came back with bruises, sometimes a cut lip. Nothing that Vernon and Petunia couldn’t put on boys being boys if anyone asked after the injuries.

The worst came later, after Harry’s sixth birthday.

Harry had snuck into his aunt and uncles bedroom while he had thought they were too busy downstairs to notice. He put on one of Petunia’s dresses, stepped into the pretty silver pumps Vernon had gotten her for their anniversary last year when he took her to the theater and even applied the women's favorite pink  _ Chanel _ lipstick to his mouth.

Vernon had caught the boy and dragged him out of the room. He didn’t shout, that was the most fearsome thing. He was quiet in his anger. 

Petunia had watched from her perch on the stairs as her husband took off his belt and used it on the boys back from shoulder to arse until red stains bled through her dress. Vernon had been so furious, so eager to punish and stomp out this flame that he hadn’t taken it off the boy though her shoes were discarded through the hall, having slipped off of his feet while he was dragged out of the room. Her lipstick stained the wallpaper from where Vernon had held the boys face to the wall as he gave him his lashings. 

  
After when the boy had dropped to his knee’s trembling and shaking, tears and snot running down his face, Vernon proceeded to kick him in the sides and chest. Once satisfied, he threw the boy down the stairs past Petunia. He followed after and ripped off the dress before he lifted Harry and threw him in the cupboard. 

Harry stayed in the cupboard for near a month, being brought small meals and glasses of water to just keep him alive. He was only allowed out to go use the basement toilet and when he started to smell he was allowed to bath down there as well. 

The hot water wasn’t turned on in the basement and it came out frigid. While he washed Petunia would wash the stink from his clothes in the sink and hang them to dry. She gave them back to him most of the time damp, the child unable to withstand the freezing bath for too long so he would come up wrapped in a dirty towel to clothes that weren’t completely dry.

Harry was seven when he snapped, so to say. It was an ordinary average evening when Harry went whirling around on his uncle after Vernon ordered him to do something, calling him ‘boy’ like he always did. They never used his name. 

Petunia would never know why that one time was different from all the rest. Why it had set her nephew off. He should have just kept quiet, acted like he was supposed to, do what he was told like a good boy. But he had to be difficult, he always had to make things harder on himself. 

“I’m not a boy, I’m not a boy. I’m a girl. A _ girl _ !” Harry had shouted as loud as he could, tears streaming down his face. “And I want to be called Amanda, not Harry. ”

  
Vernon didn’t shout back, he didn't stand up right away either to beat him right like Petunia thought he would. He just sat at the table, paper crumpling in his fists as his face turned redder and redder with each second. Dudley gaped between them and started to snicker and taunt that Harry was really going to get it this time. Calling him a poof and other derogatory names he learned from his father and friends. 

“I warned you,  _ boy, _ ” Vernon had said evenly, face still red, veins protruding from his fat neck and forehead. He rose slowly from his chair and Harry had tried to run for his cupboard but it did him no good. He wasn’t safe there.

  
“I told him, Petunia, I warned him what would happen,” Vernon told her as he made his way to the cupboard. Each step thunder, the floor creaking. “I won’t have one in my house. I won’t.”

  
Petunia just nodded at her husband as she put her arms over Dudley’s shoulders as she held him back against her, the two just watching. 

She patted the top of Dudley’s head. He was a good boy, she was so proud of him. They had raised him properly and he was just right, a strapping lad who acted as he was meant to act and thought how he was supposed to think. She didn’t know where they had gone wrong with Harry, but they did all they could for him. So she told herself to justify what came next and why she couldn’t interfere.

  
He had made his bed and now he must lie in it.

  
Vernon had wrenched the door open, beat Harry to an inch of his life before he calmly went over to the door and put on his coat and hat. He was taking the boy away. This was the last time Petunia would see her nephew.

  
“Petunia, make sure none of the neighbors are out will you?” he asked her as he looked down at Harry wheezing on the floor. 

  
She sprinted through the hall and straightened her back as she got to the door. She walked outside and made it look as if she were just checking on her flowers while there was still some light out before coming back in and reporting to Vernon that no one was out and the neighbor's blinds were drawn closed for the day. 

Vernon seemed pleased and went back to Harry. He lifted the boy up and took him out of the house to the car, putting Harry in the backseat. He didn’t come back to the door to tell her where he was taking the boy. He just quietly opened the driver's door and got behind the wheel. He didn’t roll down his window to tell her when he would be back either, probably because he didn't want the neighbors to hear them and peek out to see what was going on. He started the car and started pulled out of their driveway and soon was halfway down the road.

  
“I’m sorry, Lily. I did what I could for him.” Petunia shook her head and lifted her chin high, feeling as if she had done nothing wrong as she went back inside.

  
That was the last time she saw her nephew.

Vernon didn’t come back until eight hours later, strolling in with some milk and eggs as if he had only gone running an errand to the shops for her. 

  
Vernon didn’t answer Dudley when he asked where Harry went. The only thing he did say was that their home would be stained no long by Harry Potter and that he wouldn’t be coming back ever again.

  
When Mrs. Figgs asked what had happened to Harry after not seeing him for months, Petunia and Vernon put on a sad act and told her that the boy had been ill in the mind. It wasn’t safe for them or the child to keep him at home. They took him to a good hospital to get proper help. 

The old woman had looked panicked and rushed back to her house. Petunia just put it off that she possibly had grown attached to the boy. Birds of a feather and all. 

They never spoke of Harry Potter again and all was well and normal at Number 4 Privet Drive. As it should be.


	2. Homeless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Uncle Vernon took Amanda and what happened to her after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Proofread and updated.

Uncle Vernon had driven her all the way from Little Whinging in Surrey to a hospital in York. It was a four drive. Amanda had been going in and out of consciousness during the ride, groaning in pain and struggling to breathe. Her uncle never went any faster, keeping to the speed limit.

When the arrived at the Hospital, it was like he suddenly cares about her. He plucked her from the backseat of his car and rushed into the hospital in a panicked state, begging for someone to help. When the Doctors and nurses swarmed him and the limp child in his arms, he said he had hit her with his car, that he didn’t know who she was but that she was hurt and struggling to breathe. 

Amanda, despite her fight to stay alive, was confused because it sounded as if her uncle was actually worried he had killed her. She had to remind herself that he did this to her, that he didn’t take her to a hospital in Surrey but one 4 hours away. He didn’t really care about her, he just didn’t want this to get back to him and his family.

Once the doctors had taken her to get treated her uncle had disappeared, not waiting like he was asked for the authorities so he could answer some questions. 

When Amanda was patched up, the Doctors asked after the man who had brought her in. Who was he was to her? She was only seven, but she knew she had been abandoned and nothing good would come from telling the truth. So she lied and told the doctor the same thing her uncle had said: She didn’t know him. She apologized and explained she had not been looking while crossing the road and he had hit her with his car. She had to go through surgery for a ruptured spleen from one of her uncle’s nastier kicks and her left arm was in a cast, her face was swollen on one side from a powerful impact. But the boot prints and the belt welts on her back told a different story. This was not from a car accident. She had been horribly abused. 

When they asked about her family, her treatment by the people taking care of her she shrugged. They tried to explain they wanted to help her, that they could arrest the bad man who had hurt her if she just told them the truth.

She kept her lips sealed. It was tempting to believe that Uncle Vernon would be punished if she spoke up, but uncle Vernon had always been good at lying and making her the bad one. So she didn’t take the chance.  

They asked her what her name was, having put on her chart Young John Smith until they learned her name.

She just insisted her name was Amanda Potter and gave them no other name but that. Everyone at the hospital kept calling her “Mr, he, young man and son.” and Amanda wanted to scream at them not to. Those weren’t the right words. But she didn’t scream. She didn’t know what would happen if they kicked her out. She was seven-years-old and she was scared

They had all looked at her, disturbed at her insistence that she was a girl. They even showed her her chart and explained her anatomy, what it meant. They weren’t being vindictive, they were calm and patient with her but Amanda just wished they would let it go. They didn’t.  A psychiatrist came to see her later. He asked her what her name was, she told him the same thing. Her name was Amanda Potter. He asked her why she thought she was a girl. 

  
“I just know I am,” she told him stubbornly, eyes getting wet. What did any of this matter? They were doctors, they were supposed to heal her wounds, why couldn’t they just focus on that.

  
They asked after her childhood and she said she didn’t remember, that all she knew was that her name, that parents were dead and she was hit by a car. She couldn’t remember anything but that.

  
The doctors accepted it and said amnesia wasn’t uncommon in these situations, especially when they found her head had also been injured. She heard whispers that she was malnourished, she could have run away from an abusive, queer pervert who had for some reason put it in her head that she was a girl.

Amanda hated all of them for thinking that. She felt dirty. She wanted to leave but having been abandoned by her uncle Vernon and with no family, the hospital had no other choice but to hand her over to the authorities. They told her she was to be placed in an orphanage once she was well enough.

That was not going to happen. Amanda didn’t refuse out loud, but she was not going to an orphanage. They would give her a new name, a boys name and make her wear boys clothes and tell her to act like a boy. She had enough of that from the Dursleys. She would rather be homeless and be herself than trapped with strangers and forced to be something she wasn’t. She might only be seven-years-old, but she could do it.

  
When she felt she could run, that she was strong enough, she took the first opportunity to present itself to her. Left alone one day she quietly left her room, looking as if she was just going to the bathroom. She stopped at one of the larger, private rooms when she saw through the door some clothes neatly folded on the end of the bed. She cracked open the door, checking to see if anyone was inside. When she saw it was clear she tiptoed in.

She looked closer at the clothes and made out they were for a girl, maybe a little older than Amanda. She couldn’t help but grin. She went back to the door and closed it just enough she wouldn’t be seen. She put on the teal colored jumper, smiling at the little flowers and butterflies stitched across the left shoulder and then tugged on the denim skirt and stockings. The skirt was a little big on her thin hips so she used the tie to the robe she had been wearing as a belt. 

  
There were shoes too. When she tried them on she was surprised that they actually fit her. She was about to leave when she noticed a purse on a chair in the corner. She went over, feeling horrible for what she was about to do, and took what money there was and shoved it in her pocket before leaving the room. She walked calmly as she could, trying to look like she knew where she was going. She was stopped once asking if she needed help. 

  
She told them that she needed to get back to the waiting room. A nurse had let her back to use the restroom when the one in the waiting room was too occupied and she really, really needed to go. But the nurse hadn’t stayed with her and now she wasn’t sure how to get back and was pretty sure she had gotten lost.

  
The doctor that stopped her just gave a small chuckle and pointed her in the right direction.

  
Amanda got to the waiting room and went right for the doors. Soon she was outside, breathing in the cool night air. She didn’t stay long and started to run as quickly and as far as she could get from the hospital. She’s not sure where to go. Her Uncle brought her to York, a place she had never been before. Lucky for her some shops gave out maps for free. She wasn’t sure how it would actually help her, but she asked someone for one anyway.

When it gets late, really late, she keeps off the streets where people might question why she was out after dark alone. Maybe no one would actually care, but she thinks it might be better to hide. She moves through allies as much as she can to avoid being seen and tried to think of what she’s going to do now. She homeless and just a little kid. She doesn’t know anything really. She’s suddenly very scared about what she’s done. When she feels like she can’t go on, she curls up behind a dumpster and cries herself to sleep.

When she wakes up she sneaks back out of the alley to the street. Her stomach rumbles but she’s used to that. She doesn’t have much money so she wants to save it until she’s desperate. She’s lasted 2 weeks without food before. She’ll use the money on water, she’ll take only little sips and make sure it lasts her as long as it can. She’ll figure this out. She will.

  
She figures things out enough that she lasts three months on the streets. She watches kids with their parents, run up close to adults so people think she’s with them, so it’s not noticeable she’s alone. She quickly finds the best places to sleep at night and which shops and restaurants threw out food still good enough to eat in the trash out back. She had worried that she would have to dodge the police, but her hair had grown again, past her shoulders now. She looks like a girl in the clothes she’s wearing and the Hospital probably told them to look for a boy. They wouldn’t recognize her if she walked right past them.

She made the money she stole last for as long as she could and what she has left now she knows she should use to get another bottle of water but instead. But she seven and all she really wants very is a chocolate bar, so that is what she uses the very last money on her to buy. She was practically giddy. It’s the sweetest, most wonderful thing in the world she’s ever had. She feels like she could float away as she savors every little bite she takes. Then she’s brought down to earth when she bumps into someone.

Her grip slackens and the candy bar drops from her fingers and lands in a puddle. She was going to save the rest. Make it last like the water. Who knows when she might need it again when she might find herself starving and need just a lick of hope.   
Her eyes grow wet and her chin wobbles. Her stomach growls loudly in longing for the lost chocolate. She won't cry and she thinks she really just might. She’s so hungry and exhausted. Her head hurts and she misses her cupboard. Why couldn’t she have just been born normal? Maybe her aunt and uncle would have loved her, maybe she would never have had to live on the streets just to be the girl she knew she was. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” the man says and Amanda doesn’t look at him. Her eyes are still transfixed on the candy bar sitting in the puddle.

  
She can’t be picky. She leans down and takes it with the uncaring attitude of a child.

  
“Miss, you can’t possibly think to still eat that.” The man gasps with disgust. 

She wants to yell at him that he didn’t know what it took to get that candy bar, that it was all the food she had. She had to ask another child, who had wandered from his parents to buy hers for her. But she had to give the rest of her money to him so he could also buy himself a chocolate bar or he wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t buy it herself because her clothes are filthy, her hair is ratty and her hands and knees are stained with who knows what from sleeping in dirty alleys and abandoned buildings when she could. She would have been chased out of the shop.

“Here.” a thin hand is holding an even bigger, already half opened, bar of chocolate out to her. The kind with little squares.

She stares at the chocolate, almost hypnotized by it. She wants to grab it and run but something is holding her back, telling her to stay. Her eyes travel from the chocolate and up the hand holding it to the arm. He’s wearing a worn tweed jacket that was patched up sloppily and had loose threads all over and the seam at the shoulder was all crooked somehow. His clothes looked almost as bad as her own and she wondered if maybe he was homeless too.

It took her a while to reach his face because the man is actually quite tall. At least six feet and she was hadn’t been in a rush to meet his eyes. She was still mourning her Mars Bar and really shouldn’t stay in case he realized she was alone. But she didn’t leave, she looked up to see the face of the generous person offering her a replacement for her dirtied chocolate.

  
The man was young, or at least younger than her aunt and uncle. He couldn’t be older than thirty, though some of the lines on his face might make you think he was. He was pale, very pale giving him almost an appearance of being ill. He had scruffy looking stubble, the little mustache above his lip not meeting the rest on his chin and cheeks. 

He had wispy light brown hair, almost blonde with some streaks of grey in it. He had lines going across his face that Amanda realized were scars. She wondered how he got them. Had he been in a car accident too?

Then there were his eyes, he had the most somber green eyes Amanda had ever seen But then they seemed to glow with recognition, his brown pinched as he studied her eyes and the scar above her brow.

“Harry?” he asked her.

Amanda bristles with alertness. He knew her somehow. Was he a neighbor of the Dursley that she had never noticed?

She was so dumb. She should have grabbed the chocolate from his hand and ran away. Maybe she still can.

She ducks her head down and grabs the chocolate from his hand, holding it to herself greedily as she tries to move around him quickly but the stranger won’t let her go. He stops her, taking hold of her shoulders as he kneels down to her level, keeping her where she is.

  
“Is it really you, Harry?” the strangers asks, his voice cracking with emotion. “The last time I saw you, you were just a babe. But I’m sure it’s you. It is isn’t. Harry Potter?”

She shakes her head “My names Amanda.” 

She starts to struggle, wiggling her shoulder to try and get him to loosen his grip on them, trying to duck and go under his arms, but he holds tight, pulling her back up. He looks frail but he’s surprisingly strong as he keeps her in place. It doesn’t hurt though, just enough to keep her from slipping his grip.

  
Why won’t he let her go? She told him she wasn’t Harry. So he should let her go now.

“I’m not who you think I am.” she tells him, practically hyperventilating now. She’s scared. “I’m Amanda, just Amanda. I’m not Harry.”

She can feel the tears well in her eyes, she’s scared. She doesn’t want to go to the orphanage. At least on the streets, she can be herself. 

The man is quiet for a moment, thinking. 

  
“Perhaps you’re not called Harry anymore. But your Lily's child.” he tells her. “You have your mother's eyes.”

Amanda can’t help herself, her eyes meet his. How did he know that was her mum’s name?

He smiles and it’s a sad kind of smile and she wonders why that is. She’s too young to understand how much a person can miss another person.

“I would know those eyes anywhere,” he says.

Her heart thumps painfully in her chest, her mouth goes dry and she remembers she needed to buy more water but she wasted her money on the candy bar. She starts to whimper. She doesn’t know what to do.

  
“Is your aunt and uncle with you?” he asks, looking around for her relatives as if they couldn’t be too far from her.“What are you doing in York, I thought your aunt and uncle lived in Surrey?”

Finally, he looks at her again and this time he takes all of her in. From her matted hair to the dirt on her face, the rip in her skirt and the stains on her clothes. Her legs are scraped and bruised, her shoes or scuffed and scratched, her fingers are stained with filth of some kind.

  
“Oh, dear girl, what happened to you?” the stranger asked, tears glossing his eyes as he looks both angry and sad at the same time as he pulls her to his chest.

  
No one's ever hugged her before. It’s strange, uncomfortable and somehow very wonderful. Amanda doesn’t move, she keeps her arms tight around herself, an arm guarding the hand that’s holding the chocolate. The animal inside her, the one that had to come out to help her survive, was afraid she might lose the sweet snack. 

“I don’t know you.” she shakes her head against his shoulder. “How do you know me?”

She doesn’t know why but there’s something familiar about him, as if she had met him a very long time ago.

“I was a good friend of your parents,” he says as she pulls back from her, studying her face. “My name is Remus Lupin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapters will get longer. I promise.


	3. Chapter 2: Not Homeless anymore?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus takes Amanda someplace to talk and learns the disturbing details of why she was on the street.

****Remus takes Amanda to a cafe called Brew & Brownie, a wizard owned shop that also catered to Muggles.

There is a wizard at the counter that Remus recognizes. A chap named Cletus whose a few good years younger than Remus that always smiles and blushes at him when he comes in. If only he knew that he was a werewolf he might not smile and blush at him so much.

He buys Amanda a sandwich and a cup of strawberry and rhubarb tea. He gets himself a cup of tea that tastes like oranges and mint for himself. The cafe was popular for their tea flavors.

“Here yeh go, Remus.” Cletus offers a flirty smile as he puts his cup tea in front of him.

Cletus either doesn't notice Amanda with him or is just choosing to ignore her for the moment despite having just put her plate and her tea in front of her.

Remus thanks him as is polite before he ducks his head. He is now completely focusing on Amanda as he gives her an encouraging nod to go ahead and eat. Cletus looks disappointed but wanders back to the counter where a new customer is perusing the chalkboard menu. Along with its tea and baked goods, the cafe was also a deli as one could tell from the sandwich that Remus had ordered for Amanda.

He sits across from Amanda with his hands cupping the white porcelain curve of his cup. He had lead them to a small table in the back when they first came in. He thought Amanda might be more comfortable where fewer people could see her. She was very shifty and the animal in him sensed her flight or fight instinct. He understood. He might have brought her to a public place but he was still a stranger and the only thing she knew of him was that he had said he had been a friend of her parents.

He looks at her arm, the one with the chipped away cast that peaks out from the sleeve of her jumper and wonders if her arm had healed properly before it had started to come apart. She didn’t seem to be in any pain but people like them were good at hiding their pain from others. He could sense that when he first met her.

“Please, eat.” he urged, nodding to the turkey and rye sandwich he had bought her. She was so thin, her hands boney and her cheeks sunken. It made him feel ill just looking at her. She probably hadn't had a real meal in weeks, maybe months. No wonder she picked up that chocolate bar from the dirty puddle it fell in if his assumptions about her were right.

“I imagine you must be quite hungry,” he said with a sheepish and understanding smile. 

She looks at the sandwich and then at her chocolate, she’s crushed it a bit from how hard she had been holding onto it. Remus notices and smiles sadly, understanding her instincts to protect her food. It makes him wonder all the more how long she had been out on the streets.

“I won’t take it back from you, I promise.” he said trying to calm down some of the fears he saw in her.

Even after he’s coaxed the chocolate from her hand she makes sure it’s close.

She hunches over the sandwich like a territorial animal and gobbles it up as if any moment he would try and take it from her. When she finishes, still looking hungry he waves over Cletus and asks for a bowl of Cullen Skink to follow her sandwich and warm her up. This time he also orders himself something. He puts in an order for their famous roast beef and french onion grilled cheese sandwich.

This time Amanda seems to take it slower with her soup now that she sees Remus has his own food and therefore he would now be less motivated to take her food back.

Nothing goes unoticed by Remus.

He hates this. Hate seeing this little girl react in such a way to food. Something she should have had a steady and healthy supply of. She was supposed to have been safe, protected and cared for. What had gone so wrong?

  
The whole world knew that Dumbledore had taken Amanda the night You-Know-Who vanished after killing James and Lily Potter, but no-one knew for sure where he had taken her to live until she was old enough for Hogwarts.

Since Sirius had been arrested the same night of their freinds death and the vanquishing of the Dark Lord, the options for where the child-who-lived were slim.

Remus was an unsafe choice to raise a child in his condition and all their other friends were dead. Remus had assumed the only ones who Dumbledore might consider placing Jame's child with was Lily’s Muggle sister. Otherwise, it would have been one trusted wizard or witch that Dumbledore gave her too that could keep their mouth shut about being the one to raise the-at the time they referred to Amanda as a The boy-who-lived- and even if they could keep quiet about it they would have had to keep Amanda locked away at all times for the wizarding world not to know where she was or who was taking care of her.

It had to have been Petunia. As Muggle as they got, living in a peaceful muggle suburb with her husband and infant son at the time. No one to think to look for her with Muggles.

But if Dumbledore thought it was so safe to leave her with Lily’s sister then why was it that his best mates daughter was sitting in front of him looking like a child from the slums of London?

There was also no way a nine year old child could make it all the way from Surrey to York without help. He could only think it was her Muggle relatives that dumped her in York, but he couldn’t be sure or fathom why. Perhaps a death eater had found her and she somehow she  managed to escape by calling on her accidental magic, so young that it would still be called on my strong emotions of fear. It was a possibility that set him on edge, but Dumbledore wouldn’t let that happen. He would have had wards, maybe even the Fidelus Charm protecting her. It couldn’t have been a death eater then. So how did she get to York.

He needed to find out the answers to these questions but first he needed to get Amanda to trust him.

“Amanda.” Remus says her name, slow. He sounds like he's testing the name almost. He smiles. “That’s a very pretty name. May I ask why you chose it?”

  
She slow down the path of her spoon to her mouth, his question making her pause. Amanda shifts in her seat. She is somehow more uncomfortable under his stare then when she was being hugged. She gives a half hearted shrug.

  
“It--” she starts, but it’s like she afraid for some reason to tell him, to expose herself more to him.

To buy herself time she takes a drink of her tea. But Remus is patient, just watching her with those somber green eyes.

  
“It was in a book of names I found while cleaning.” she gave the shortest answer. “It said that it meant ‘Worthy of love’”

  
Remus nods, starting to understand the situation. Her choice in name alone says a great deal about how she must have been treated by her relatives. Petunia had always resented her sister and James had said that her fiance, Vernon, had been a horrid blob of a muggle when they had met for the first and last time.

  
“How long have you been alone here, Amanda?” Remus asks, voice soft and waiting.

Amanda wipes her mouth with her napkin, remembering she had one before she went to use her sleeve. She pauses from her eating but she doesn’t answer him.

“Please, I just want to help you.” he pleads, voice still patient. “But I can only do so much if you don’t tell me the full story.”

  
Amanda stays quiet, shrinking in her chair.

“You said you knew my mum and dad.” she's recalling their brief conversation prior to coming to the cafe.

“Can you tell me about my parents?” she looked up at him, green eyes big and begging to change the subject.

  
With a sigh, Remus realized he wouldn’t get anywhere if he pushed too hard. He had to get her to open up to him and telling her about her parents might just help her relax enough to talk to him.

He hadn’t talked about James and Lily with anyone in a very long time.

  
“I was never allowed to ask about them. Aunt Petunia only told me they died in a car crash, that’s how I got my scar.” Amanda pushed up her bangs and showed him the pinkish lighting strike over her brow.

Remus eyes are full of gloom and fury. He could see them reflected in her own eyes. He couldn’t believe that Petunia hadn’t told Lily’s own child what had happened to her. Surely she knew. She must have had some clue. But then again how did a Muggle explain that to a child, that their parents had been murdered by a mad man while protecting them.

  
“They never told you?” his voice is agitated and gruff. He didn’t think he would ever have this responsibility to tell Lily and James daughter how they had died. He had thought one day he might get to tell their child how they had lived, the happiness and bravery of their lives not the terrible event of their deaths.

  
“Tell me what?” she asks, leaning back from him, eyeing the door as if ready to dash out.

  
Remus notices and reigns in his temper.

“I’ll tell you some other time.” he promises, not feeling like he was much up for telling her the truth just yet. Not in a public place like they were at. “This is isn’t the place.”

  
Amanda frowns at that.

  
“Why not? I want to know.” she presses him for the answer. “Tell me, please.”

  
Remus recognizes an all too familiar stubbornness settle over Amanda’s face and can’t help but give a half smile. So much like James. Or maybe it’s Lily that she gets it from. They both could be very stubborn in their own ways.

  
“It’s complicated.” he says. She’s only nine, anything complicated should scare her off, confuse her. Instead, she sets her shoulders and stares him down.

  
“ _I’m_ complicated.” she says glancing down at herself and back at him with a little smirk. Oh, how Sirius would have adored her sass. The thought of Sirius left his heart aching terribly.

Sirius should have been the one taking care of Amanda if he hadn’t gone chasing Peter and killed those muggles. Allegedly at least. The ministry wanted to throw him into Azkaban without a trial. It was their Transfiguration Professor who spoke up for Sirius, insisting he get a trial. She reminded all of them that the Wizengamot had still continued to hold a trial for arrested and accused Death Eaters throughout the war and that should not stop now for one man. 

  
But where most trials were very brief, Sirius trial still continued to this day. The Ministry of Magic was doing it on purpose, making excuses as for why they couldn’t hold the trial, rescheduling over and over, saying that the requested witnesses were not available. But for the most part, Sirius Black was forgotten in his cell in Azkaban while the ministry still promised a trial. Remus still kept waiting to be called to be a character witness.

Remus stopped himself for thinking anymore of Sirius. It just hurt too much.

Instead, he goes back to thinking about Amanda.

He wonders how much she knew about herself? Was she even aware she was a wizard? Correction, a witch. Had she experienced her first accidental magic yet? What had Dumbledore even told her Muggle relatives to say to her when she started showing signs of magic? When she started asking questions?

He tries to come up with a solution that will allow them to get information from each other on even terms so she wouldn’t try to change the subject so much.

  
“How about we make a deal. I will answer one question for each question of mine that you answer. Deal?” he suggests, one brow raised with a half smile that made one of his scars wrinkle a little.

  
Amanda narrows her eyes as she thinks about it, her mouth twisting up on one side like Lily used to do when she was trying really hard to focus on something or when she was trying to figure out if James was hiding something from her.

  
“Deal.” she agrees and her mouth quirks up a bit.

  
“I go first!” she quickly cuts in. “What didn’t my aunt and uncle tell me about my mum and dad?”

He had to have seen that one coming.

“Your mum and dad, they didn't die in a car crash. A very bad man killed them.” he tries to keep his voice from shaking and tears from coming to his eyes. Just the memory could leave him a crying mess that no matter how much chocolate he ate couldn’t ease his pain.

  
“Oh,” Amanda says quietly looking down at her plate.

  
“I think you need to know that they died protecting you from that same bad man. They loved you so much, Amanda.” she needs to hear this, he could see she needed to hear this.

  
Amanda shakes her head, frowning, her emerald eyes watering.

  
“No." she swallows thickly.

"They loved _Harry._ ” she spat the name with disdain.

  
Remus smiled sadly in emapthy. 

The Muggle world was so much harder on people like them. They liked to categorize everyone and everything. If somethings stepped out of that box and had no other box to go into they struck out with confused fury. To them, gender and sexuallity were like single, different colored, parralel lines that could only flow in one direction. But what they didn’t see about those lines was that they were actually made of an infinite amount of other lines of various different colors and some even a mix of colors in one string. From a great distance, all of those strings seemed like just a single, solid one colored line like the Muggles liked to believe them to be, when it really was of interwoven strings, interchanging and crossing over others flowing in dozens of different directions.

  
He knew Amanda was a girl, a real and true girl in all the senses that really mattered. She knew she was a girl, and that was enough. There were no rules, no checklist she had to mark down the boxes of to qualify to be a girl. She just was and that was accepted in the wizarding world. They had learned to embrace the beauty of people like Amanda for hundreds of years now. They had learned from themselves and from watching the Muggles that nothing good came from fearing and ostracizing those that were different.

That wasn’t to say it never happened. It still happened plenty and with much more simple cases then Amanda’s. He lived it and he had seen it plenty in school.

  
“That's not true.” he told her, feeling hurt for Lily and James but he had to remember that Amanda never got the chance to know her parents. She wasn’t saying this out of malice.

“I came around your mum and dads when you were a baby and you were the most beloved child I had ever met.” he told her. “Boy, girl or anything else you turned out to be they would have loved you still.”

“And a name is simply a gift from your parents,” he tried to explain better to give her some comfort. “And your parents wouldn’t have loved you any less if you returned that gift. They wouldn’t have been angry at you for choosing a new name.”

He wanted so much for her to know just how much she was loved by her parents. “You are worthy of love, Amanda.”

  
“I’m a freak.” her chin trembled and tears started to spill down her cheeks. “Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia always told me so.”

He wanted to comfort her, but he wasn’t sure if she would let him so he kept a physical distance as not to frighten her.

“Well they were wrong.” he told her sharply. “You are wonderful.”

She looked at him through her long black hair, unsure and yet there was hope their, for recognition and acceptance. He would never deny her that he wanted to tell her. He saw her.

“When I was born I was named Rieka, much like how you were named Harry. And just like you I found later I would grow out of that name and choose a new one for myself.” he smiled, hoping by sharings his story he could show her that she was not a freak, that she could be accepted and happy.

  
“In fact, I knew that I was mis-bodied around the same age as you. There was a voice inside me whispering I was meant to be a man and I am one.” he shared, recalling when he had gone to his mother crying and telling her he didn’t want to wear the dresses she got him and how sorry he was because he wasn’t sure how to explain it and was scared how she and his father would react.

  
He knew they loved him, but he was already a werewolf, bitten at only five years old and didn’t want his parents to finally abandoned him. They had tried so hard to make him a normal child after being bitten, what if not wanting to be a girl was the straw that broke the camel's back for them.

But his mother had only smiled.

  
“I was wondering when you were going to say something, _mein Schatz_.” she had said using the German term of endearment for ‘treasure’.

“My brave boy, mama loves you so much.” she had pulled him into her lap and held him close. “We’ll go to the shops tomorrow and you’ll be just as handsome a man as your father.”

“Really, _Mutter?_ ” he has asked, afraid she was just pretending to be ok for his sake.

  
“Of course, _mein Schatz_. You simply have bloomed into a different flower than we thought you would be.” she told him, stroking his hair. “But it is a beautiful flower all the same.”

When he and his mother had come back from the shop, with Remus dressed in a tweed jacket, a bow tie and some trousers his father had blinked before a huge grin split his face.

  
“Who is this handsome young man you have brought to me, my love?” he asked his wife, staring at Remus with great joy and pride.

“It’s me father!” Remus spoke up, still nervous.

  
“Oh, and who is, me?” Lyall quirked his head, waiting for Remus to introduce himself.

  
He looked up at his mother and she nodded to him with a smile to go ahead.

  
“Remus Lupin, your son father.” he had squeaked more like a mouse than a wolf.

  
“Oh, my son, my beautiful son, welcome home!” Lyall cheered and scooped Remus into his arms, peppering his face with kisses.

He had only wished that Amanda could have received the same acceptance he had when she came out.

“But you don’t sound or look--”

  
Remus chuckled.

  
“There are ways to help change both so your more comfortable with yourself.” he admitted to her. “It’s called transitioning and I can help you if you want.”

“Really?” she asked and their was such desperate hope in her eyes it made him want to cry and reach out and take her into his lap like his mother had him. To tell her all would be alright.

“Of course.” he promised.

“But I need to know, Amanda, did your aunt and uncle leave you here or did you run away?” he made sure to keep his voice from sounding accusing, because he wasn’t. If she had run away maybe it was while her family was on holiday and they had treated her badly then he couldn’t blame her for running off from them. If she had or hadn’t runaway, it still mattered. It mattered how she had come to be here to determine where she would go next.

Amanda shook her head and gave a little sob. “I told them to stop calling me ‘boy’, I told them I wanted to be called Amanda and Uncle Vernon turned red. I tried to hide in my cupboard, but he chased me and---

“Did they hurt you?” Remus throat was tight as he asked, fearing the answer he expected.

Amanda nodded. “My uncle did and then he put in the car and brought me to a hospital here. He told the doctors he hit me with his car but that it was an accident and he didn’t know me. Then he was gone. He left.”

Remus curled his fingers into a fist. That bastard had hurt her so bad he had to take her to the hospital. He wanted to whisk her away right to St. Mungo’s for a proper check up, to make sure the muggles had fixed her right. But he stayed rooted.

She was trying to look brave and uncaring as she wiped away her tears. She sniffled some, but she that was it and when she spoke again she was calmer sounding.

“They never wanted me anyway.” She shrugged as if none of it really mattered. “Besides, being on my own isn’t that bad.”

  
Remus used to tell himself the same thing after Lily and James died, after Peter was killed and Sirius arrested. Sometimes he could actually make himself believe it was ok, that it was alright to be alone and that he could manage. That it was better if he was alone. He was dangerous and he had nothing to offer anyone. But right then, he had more to offer Amanda than he ever imagined.

He couldn’t leave her alone. He had to help her and make sure she never went back to the Dursleys.

  
“Amanda, I know you just met me. But I think it would be best if you come home with me. I don’t have much, but it’s better than the streets and I can answer more questions for you.” as he tried to persuade her he wondered if her aunt and uncle ever gave the stranger-danger talk, most children got.

Amanda face darkened and she glared at him. “Your just going to call the Bobbies and they’ll take me to the orphanage.”

“I would never do that.” he said the words in a rush when she started to stand, ready to run. “I swear on your parents, who I loved dearly, I will never let anyone take you that you don’t want to go with.”

  
She considered him, most likely trying to decide if she should trust him or not.

When she began to finish her soup he wondered if that was a bad or a good sign. He was scared when she was done that she would bolt, having gotten what she needed to hold her off for a little while. He wouldn’t blame her really.

So when she dropped her spoon in the bowl and finished off her tea and didn’t get up and run for the door, he was surprised and relieved.

  
“I can clean, cook and garden.” she started telling him and he wasn’t sure as to why at first.

“I can be very quiet and I don’t take up much room. I promise I won’t be a burden.” when she said this Remus understood she was trying to make a case for her worth, for reasons to keep her.

  
“You don’t have to worry about any of that, Amanda.” he shook his head and gave a soft laugh. “I want you to come with me so I can take care of you, not the other way around.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so I changed somethings about Remus parents.  
> So some knowledge on my AU Hope Howell(mama Lupin)  
> Her father was a Welsh Farmer, a large and vicious man(her boggart) and her mother was a German woman. Her father was an abusive drunk and her mother had taken her in the night and went back to Germany. They returned years later when they received a letter from her father's lawyer of his passing and that he had left all he had to Hope.  
> Hope returned with her mother and they sold her fathers farm and got a small house with her mother and found a job at an insurance office. She then later met Lyall when she wandered into the dense forest by her home and was confronted by a boggart that Lyall 'saved' her from.  
> Also, Mama and Papa Lupin have not yet passed as the did in canon in 1981/1982, so we will be seeing them later.


End file.
